Lush Blank Crimson

Middle English lush, possibly from lascious, lascivious — a word that drifted from sensual ripeness toward visual abundance. Used as a color word since the eighteenth century for the saturated greens of well-watered foliage and the deep saturated jewel tones of velvet upholstery. Used across the deep and bold buckets where the hue is simultaneously dark and vivid.

Old French blanc, white-or-empty. As a color modifier, blank implies an unmarked-and-empty-and-pristine quality, the visual register of fresh-page-and-primed-canvas-blank hand-unmarked-and-empty-and-pristine fresh-page-and-primed-canvas-and-white-room blanked-and-unmarked-and-empty-and-pristine surfaces under fresh-page-and-primed-canvas-and-white-room studio-and-stationer-and-gallery untouched-light. Sits at the modifier-and-mood end of the grid, parallel to void and hollow in usage.

From the Old Spanish cremesin, itself from the Arabic qirmiz — the kermes scale insect, dried and ground into a brilliant carmine dye prized in the medieval Mediterranean. For centuries the most expensive red on a draper's shelf, reserved for cardinals, kings, and the cloth that gave English the word crimson. Cooler than scarlet, deeper than rose; the color of pomegranate seeds and a serious occasion.